But ever since Berlin ArtParasites came into our lives, it has become a reflection of our thoughts, opening the tiny little boxes tucked away in some corner. With colours and words, they bring to life all that has been locked up within.

Starting off in 2011, Berlin ArtParasites set out on a mission to bring together emotion, art and writing. With a strong foundation of around 3 million likes on Facebook, the page is everyone’s go-to forum these days.

It is tough to pick the best posts, but we tried. Here are 10 handpicked posts that we’re sure you’ll like.

1. A poem for all those who have a hard time saying goodbye

I have gotten used to saying goodbye

2. What the burden of adulthood actually feels like

When do you become an adult? At 16, 18, or 21? Is it when you get your first job, when you get married, or when you have a child? I had never experienced a defining moment when I felt like I changed from a child or teenager into an adult. I am 25 years old. It always felt strange to think of myself as a grown up adult, despite having taken important decisions, fulfilling certain responsibilities, and doing other myriad tasks generally associated with growing up.

A few months ago I was thrust into a situation that, for the first time, made me realise my adulthood. And the burden that came with it. The situation: My grandfather passed away. The burden: The fear of losing the people you love.

I believe that this is the burden of adulthood. The fear of losing the people you love, those who you are close to, who are essential in your life, who make you the person you are, and who you think you cannot continue to live without.

Everyone feels various degrees of this fear in their lifetime. But I think when this fear becomes a sudden, unexpected reality, is when you take your first step into adulthood. This could happen at any stage in your life; you could be 5 or 25 the first time you experience this reality. Maybe if you are 5 you cannot process what has happened immediately. The loss of a loved one at a stage when you are mature enough to understand what has happened, then you can truly feel the consequences of that occurrence.

You will be able to feel the pain associated with the passing of that person, and you will realise that it does not end there. There are after-effects, like the little aftershocks of a big earthquake. Every little aftershock reminds you of the traumatic earthquake experience. You will remember the time that has passed, miss the time that could have been, all the things that were said and done, the things that were left unsaid, and those that should have been done. You will cry, or be rendered mute. You may not be able to sleep or may end up whiling away the days sleeping trance-like. You will react to this information in x different ways over y time period. And then you may experience a crushing fear. The little degrees of fear that you were feeling all your life have suddenly come true all at once and you realise that this could happen to anyone you love, at any time.

And that is when you truly feel the burden of adulthood. You realise that this is a part of growing up. As you grow older, the people in your life grow older too. You realise that they are not invincible. And that someday you will have to bid farewell to them all.

Maybe this realisation changes you in some way. Maybe it makes you do some things differently. Maybe it doesn’t. But there is one thing that it definitely does.It makes you an adult.

3. When a writer falls in love

Honey you made a mistake,

4. You ask me about these reckless teenagers

Let me tell you what you don’t know about them.

5. Do they still fall in love?

do they still fall in love?

6. I’m a hoarder and I’m not ashamed of it

I am unofficially the world’s biggest Hoarder of Useless Things.

The people I’ve lived with, however, have NOT appreciated these little discoveries. My former flat mate, God bless her, kept stumbling upon these wonders long after I moved out. A box full of Happy Meal toys. An IKEA wooden bed in its original box. Poker cards. A bag of old, moldy figs. A magazine filled with photos of naked women I honestly don’t even remember about. This last one kind of creeped her out.

It goes like this:

Of course, my desk is anything but neat and tidy, I have never owned a kimono in my life, and I wear wooly socks even in August. I know this is just another-life-I’ll-never-live, in the form of a mental postcard.

The Bohemian-Artist-That-Paints-Walls meets the Goth-Chick-That-Makes-Her-Own-Jewelry. Then the Interior-Decorator-That-Loves-Pastels competes with the Crazy-Cat-Photographer-That-Collects-Cat-Costumes and when you think it can’t get weirder, the Seriously-Fucked-Up-Kindergarten-Teacher wants to put up a gore puppet show using old socks.

It gets pretty crowded in there sometimes, so I feel the need to clean up the place. The only way to evacuate all these funky characters

7. A letter to the guy with whom I lost my innocence

Love,

I do not know what exactly is happening to me but I had constant sleepless nights after the day we slept together for the first time. I can’t sustain this strange feeling as what happened to us kept on running in my mind. Why am I feeling so weak? I know we’ve gone a bit far. I was never one of those I’m-going-to-wait-until-we-get-married type so don’t you worry, I didn’t have any doubt doing it with you. We’re now on our 333rd count of our unlabeled relationship and I thought I’ve already reached the deepest feelings I could have for you but love, it feels different now.

I never understood that we were actually just fascinated with each other all this time. I do not mean it in a foolish way but I can say that you mean the world to me simply because I loved you to the deepest deep. Little did I know, there’s this way that would pull myself even deeper to you.

I thought the most magical seconds I had was kissing your lips the first time. I was wrong; it’s when you tell me how you’d want to fondle my skin as well as its imperfection.

I thought telling all the best about me was the perfect way to make you fall harder. I was wrong; it’s when you have witnessed my darkest fears.

Love,

Forgive me that I have given everything to you. I was so sure keeping it safe from who have came before but now, I’d like you to have it all.

For if our memory has to die, it would also witheringly die with me… and only me.

8. The mysterious boy with a cigarette

The sky painted itself like the strokes Van Gogh at its finest, an ombre of oranges and purples, it couldn’t have been anymore magnificent.

He tucked his tussled rough curls behind his ear as he drew the Marlboro pack out of his ripped smeared denims, his hands working them out as if it were an art that required greatest of his attention. He arched his eyebrows stretching his right eye while crinkling his forehead, once again his hair fell out of place, delicately falling over his eyes. Eyes that spoke the language of intensity, narrowed and sharp, darkest of the browns and the most royal gaze.

Drawing a cigarette from the pack, he carefully placed it in between his fingers, sucking in the raw nicotine, as the lighter flared up, burning the cigarettes half way across its peak. He then, withdrew the cigarette, paused, threw his head back in anticipation and finally let go. His squared jaw awashed in the cloud of smoke, he opened his eyes to reveal a totally different aura than his usual rigid self, an aura of utter and reluctant evil joy.

He was there, standing, distant, in his own little heaven, temporary little heaven, of sedation. Conspicuously spying on this beautiful creature, I stood amongst the crowd, thinking to myself, how can a bad boy like him notice a girl like me, I was in love.

Just as he took another round of his daily nicotine abuse, he paused. His long eyelashes slowly flickered from here and there until his eyes met mine. The intensity burned through them, overwhelming me. My spine was in jitters and my blood begun to fly like butterflies. I immediately looked away, embarrassed at this very encounter of souls. He clearly saw mine. I, however, was unable to decipher his mysteries. The mysteries of his past that chisled him into who he was today, rugged.

I wondered in the depths of my heart, oh dear lord, does this young man posses a heart not as dark as the brown of his eyes but as soft as his smile. Bewilderment overwhelmed me and somehow I longed to capture him somehow, somewhere. A photograph would not have ever been enough to capture the enormity, the serenity of his world. His soul. This is what scared me, how my world was so little compared to his, how my thoughts could never match the pace of his growing imagination, how I was so insufficient to satisfy his desire.

The way he looked into my eyes, I felt a sense of belonging but at the same time I knew how incompatible we were. I guess, I, found him with pure serendipity.

As my thoughts flared, he strutted towards me, the bid of the cigarette still dangling from his lips, clasped between his teeth. I was indeed petrified, the way he seemed to glare right through every corner of my soul, I felt as if I had been stripped of my clothes. This was the damage he could do. This is how he belittled me. Mother always said “Hun, if a boy races your heart instead of giving you warmth, he’s not the one. He’s the wrong one disguised as a hard lesson, always remember that.” I decided to take the hard lesson anyway.

9. 12 Things I learned from women that made me a better man

1: My mother, the first woman in my life, taught me that life couldn’t be taught, that it had to be lived, elegantly and fearlessly. She taught me that infatuations were common, that people are different because that is what makes the world colorful, and that every heartbreak is a reminder that home is somewhere else.

2: My grandmother, the woman who has lived my life like her own since my grandfather passed away, taught me that care can’t be measured by counting the things we’ve done for someone. Instead, it lays in the unspoken little actions that we do and never turn to look back at, because that has become our nature and the people whom we do them for are our very own.

3: My first English teacher in school, the person I’ve feared the most, taught me that discipline is depth and, without it, the ocean has no waves – it has nothing.

4: My little sister was the first person born in my family after me. I remember seeing her for the first time. Her eyes taught me that responsibility chose us and not the other way around, and that, contrary to all that is said, there is love at first sight. And it has the ability to form and reform any human being.

5: The first time I had a crush on a girl was when I was in third grade, and better than any slogan or book or human being, she taught me that to share feelings for another soul never requires one to share their religion. Her faith and mine were named differently – they always meant the same.

6: The first girl I befriended in high school knew all my secrets. She was the window to my soul. And yet, now, almost a decade later, I scarcely remember her second name. She taught me that friends leave and never call back because priorities shift and life fails to wait. She taught me that, like lovers, friends also break up and each is left with a bag full of memories and a heart- full of longing.

7: My next door neighbor was 82 years old when she passed away. I had seldom talked to her except for the societal greetings. And yet, now that she isn’t there anymore and an empty window stares at mine every morning, I miss the assurance, the stability, and the calmness that she used to bring. She taught me that we underestimate the little things too much and that everything around us shapes who we are and how we eventually turn out.

8: My first pen pal was a bubbly character who always danced around with a song in her head. She taught me that friendship was more than physical presence and that distance wasn’t always the worst thing when it came to companionship – sometimes it was the best.

9: The first girl I really came to admire shared a social media workspace with me: an agency we still work at. She taught me, as she says, that life isn’t about the forevers; it is about the scattered pieces of eternity, the ones we can make homes out of and love to bits.

10: My closest girl friend at college is a feisty character that always needs to have her way with everything. She taught me that not every friendship comes with an expiration date, because not everything beautiful needs to end. More than anything, she taught me to fight for the ones I’d come to love because life doesn’t throw the people we leave back to us.

11: The only female coach that I had for football was the hardest working woman I’ve ever seen. She taught me that there is truth and justice in the world while consoling me for a missed tryout. She has gone leaps and bounds and works for the government now. She is the epitome of modesty and humility. She, better than any other soul, taught me that if you try and try and try, and if you are prepared to kill yourself to get what you want the most, then there is no force, living or dead, that can stop you. Everything I know about not giving up I have learnt from her.

12: Lastly, the first person I fell in love with was a pale, skinny, sweet-smiling girl who knew how to orchestrate my heartbeat with her waving fingers. In leaving, she taught me the most important lesson in life. She taught me that love was not for the faint-hearted, that every love was true only if it haunted us for the rest of our lives, and that I had to love my scars because they are what remain of a bygone love.

I’ll never forget the endless lives I lived in her.

10. A letter full of reminders from our inner child

Dear Adults,

I hope all of you are doing great. I didn’t want to bother you with my words. But, trust me, it was urgent and I had no other way to express myself.

I am a child.

Sometimes I am Malala and other times I can be Malia Obama. You may also find me being spoon fed by the servants of the great monarch – who earn more than you do in a desk job. You may also come across a few of us mothering our mothers and earning for our fathers. Some of us can sit for hours in the classroom, while others barely manage to sit attentive on their toilet seats.

Few days ago, I had no intention of writing these words to you. But, then I realised that balancing the adult that you are, with the child that you were, is equally important. And no one seems to give it much thought.

My dear Adults,

Remember, when I was a little voice inside you. Remember, when you were a child so fragile. Do you remember how humiliated you felt when one of those adults mistreated the maids and servants working for them? Why did you feel humiliated on their degradation? And can you recall your five years old self, trembling whenever someone dropped their groceries and despite all the influence of superhero comics and movies, it was the purity inside, which made you tremble. Do you feel nostalgic about the way you accelerated with joy whenever your best friend won something which you couldn’t. How easier it was to let go all that competition. The glory of your best friend washed away all your failures and gave you an illusion of victory.

And do you remember, how as a child you examined each and every part of the meal that you ate. Those adults wondered what took you so long to eat, but you could never explain your wonder to them. The little bugs did no less wonders than greatest magicians making visual illusions. Those little bugs still exist but you never notice. Can you recall now? Can you recall how it was being a child?

Dear adults, I am just a kid and I am in no position of accusing you. But, I saw what you did today!

Do not ask me how. I might be looking at you from the busy streets of New York or down from the dark, shabby buildings of Karachi. I am inside your hearts. I am the close cousin of your conscience.

I saw what you did today and frankly, I still get chills while you humiliate your employees.

I look at the dull walls of your workplace and all I instantly want to do is, splash some color, I do not know why, maybe you can interpret that for me, you smart adult!

I know you get tired of trying or else, no one want to waste their energy competing against someone out of spite fullness.

I know how temptation can overpower you and then how you don’t have the guts to honestly accept or confess your temptation. I understand how your lies make your one time temptation in to a long journey of deceit and pain. you want to stop all this negativity?

Some of the Aunts and Uncles act irresponsibly and spend a life of irrationality, mindless impulsiveness – calling it “being in touch with the child inside”. On behalf of all children, I protest that notion. The child inside is all about purity. The child inside is not a hiding place; rather it’s a guiding place.

I am not a healing place. I am not the voice of reason or morality, I am just a child who cannot help but make noise every time you pinch me with all your adult irrationality.

Is it really difficult to wake me up and live with me?

So, please.

Which one’s your favourite?

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